Inheritance is a fundamental concept in object-oriented programming (OOP) that allows a class to inherit properties and behaviors (methods) from another class. This promotes code reuse and establishes a relationship between classes. In inheritance, the class that inherits properties is called the subclass (or child class), while the class being inherited from is called the superclass (or parent class). The subclass can extend or modify the behavior of the superclass, providing greater flexibility in programming.

Definition: Inheritance is an object-oriented programming concept where one class (child class) acquires the properties and methods of another class (parent class).

For example, a class Animal might have methods like eat() and sleep(), and a subclass Dog can inherit these methods while also adding its own specific behavior, such as a bark() method. Inheritance allows for a hierarchical class structure, where common functionality is defined at the parent class level, and specific behavior can be customized in child classes. This reduces code duplication and simplifies maintenance.

class Animal:
    def speak(self):
        print("Animal speaks")

class Dog(Animal):
    def bark(self):
        print("Dog barks")

Inheritance supports the concept of “is-a” relationships between classes. In the above example, a dog “is an” animal, meaning the Dog class can be considered a specialized version of the Animal class. This is a powerful concept for organizing large codebases and is a core principle in object-oriented design.